Harmonic radars are used for insect localization and tracking.
The traditional harmonic radar is not found suitable for insect tracking indoors due to the high transmit power required, mechanical scanning and limited accuracy.
Also RFID-technology is used for insect localization and tracking. This technology requires active tags and these are heavy and therefore not suitable for small insects.
With passive RFID tags the problem is short reading distance.
Accurate tracking of insect movements in real time is an important tool for scientist studying the behaviour of different species. It has been previously developed a tracking system based on UHF RFID technology.
Several remote sensing and telemetric insect tracking techniques have been developed for demands of biological and agricultural studies. Remote sensing techniques do not require any physical interaction with the target whereas the insect is equipped with a transponder in telemetric techniques. A review of the techniques can be found in [1].
The remote sensing techniques used include for example radar, video graphic and other optical techniques, X-ray imaging, and passive and active acoustical techniques. Due to heavy cluttering of radar signal from ground and vegetation, the radar can only be used to track flying insects or insect swarms.
Optical remote sensing techniques are typically based on video camera and pattern recognition software that automatically identifies the target and calculates its location. Three-dimensional tracking necessitates a 3D ranging video camera or stereo vision camera. In addition to visible wavelengths video graphic techniques are also realized at infrared and thermal wavelengths, which provide night vision. Drawbacks of video graphic techniques are relatively small observation volume, unreliable pattern (and thus insect) detection, and technical challenges with ranging and stereo vision cameras.
Insect movement has also been monitored with photo detectors. The simplest systems illuminate a certain volume and measure either transmitted or scattered light, which changes in the presence of an insect. A more sophisticated technique is able to detect insect wing beat from the scattered light.
Acoustic techniques can be divided into active and passive ones. Active techniques use sodar (SOund Detection And Ranging), which shares the operation principle of radar but utilizes acoustic waves instead of electromagnetic waves. Sodars can only detect flying or moving insects. Passive acoustic tracking techniques record the sound produced by the tracked insect with spatially distributed microphones and solves for the location of insect by correlating the sound recorded in different locations.
Remote sensing techniques do not require physical contact to the insect and they do not therefore affect the insect behaviour. However, as compared to telemetric techniques remote sensing ones usually suffer from short detection range and unreliable target identification.
Telemetric techniques include radio frequency identification (RFID) and harmonic radar. In RFID, the tracked insects are equipped with a passive RFID tag or active transponder. Passive tags are smaller than the active ones but provide shorter range and lower tracking accuracy. An advantage of the RFID tracking principle over almost all other tracking techniques is that it can be used to track and identify multiple targets simultaneously.
The harmonic radar concept is based on harmonic radar and a transponder that generates radar reflections at a harmonic frequency when illuminated by a radar signal. An advantage of harmonic radar over conventional radar is that it is able to track small radar targets that are close to cluttering objects, such as ground or vegetation.